Mean Girls, The Hills and feeling old.
As we enter the fifth month of 2014, I’ve started to notice a trend; it is the year of feeling old. All the pop-culture and staples of our adolescent age is 10-years-old. Last Wednesday was the 10-year anniversary of “Mean Girls” being released; am I the only one who finds it a coincidence that it poured last Wednesday?
While it seems like just yesterday we listened to Janis explain where each clique sat during lunch at North Shore High, our — well at least mine and every middle school girl’s — favorite high schoolers in Southern California were stirring up some drama. Yes, the beloved “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County” will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary of its debut soon.
If you lived under a rock, didn’t have cable, or watched more thought provoking television unlike myself, Laguna Beach was a reality TV show, and I use the term reality very very loosely, that followed lavish and drama filled lifestyle of teenagers in (you guessed it) Laguna Beach. People from the show who are still in the spotlight today are Lauren Conrad, known as LC, and Kristin Cavallari Huffington Post recently published a “then and now” article about where our beloved Laguna Beach teens are now. Some are engaged, married with-can you believe it- kids, and others are just living the normal life or moving on from their stint in rehab. As I read the article, it caused me to reflect on my favorite TV show, and the lessons I learned from it.
1. I will never be able to listen to “Come Clean,” by Hilary Duff without thinking about the show. The song served as the show’s theme song, I will always think of dramatic rich kids and my awkward teenage years whenever I hear it.
2. If your name is Jessica, don’t ever date someone named Jason. I have made it my mission to avoid dating a guy named Jason.
3. Similar to number two, if your name is Jessica then people are still mimicking the Mad TV sketch about Laguna Beach where they obnoxiously say Jessica’s name over and over again. Also, whenever you leave to go outside I’m sure people say, “don’t go outside Jessica there’s too much drama Jessica.” If you haven’t seen this video, and want to annoy your friend named Jessica, here you go.
4. If you go out to lunch with your girlfriends and talk about drama, you must do it while eating a salad, drinking ice tea and wearing Chanel sunglasses with the giant logo on the side. It’s just not same You can’t talk about drama without salads and sunglasses.
5. If you live in California and don’t drive a BMW, Mercedes or Range Rover, you’re a peasant.
6. It’s not spring break unless you go to Cabo. Cabo! Cabo! Cabo!
7. California makes high schoolers look older than their actual age. When I got to high school I thought I was going to look like the Laguna Beach cast, apparently that’s only in SoCal.
8. If you have a lot of friends with the same first name, add on their last name initial when addressing them so you don’t get mixed up. Ex: Alex M. and Alex H. Or, if your friends all have the same hair color you should also use their last name initial as well.
Although I’m pretty sure I’ve lost a significant amount of brain cells from the Laguna Beach marathons I have watched, it will always be a nostalgic sense of my middle school days and I will carry the lessons I have learned with me — longer than when Jason and Jessica dated.
